Girls in Trouble: A Novel

by Caroline Leavitt

  When they were all as finished as they were going to be, Charlotte started clearing away the plates, and when Anne jumped up to help, Charlotte lifted her hand. “No, no, you’re a guest—” she said.

  “I’m family.”

  For a second Charlotte’s mouth wobbled, the way it always did when she was struggling with something, like the words she wanted to say wouldn’t come yet, and were crowding behind her lips. Anne stood there, glancing so anxiously from Charlotte to Danny that he suddenly didn’t know who he felt worse for, his wife or this young girl. “Hey, the more hands the better,” Danny said, and grabbed some plates to clear himself, and when he glanced over at his wife, he saw her mouth had gone soft again.

  There wasn’t much to do. Dishes piled in the dishwasher, pots soaking in the sink, and then Anne began yawning, her hands cupped over her mouth. “Looks like it’s time for you to hit the hay,” Danny said. “Come on, I’ll set you up in the den.”

  He brought her some clean linens, a blanket, a pillow. Then Charlotte appeared, holding up a green nightgown. “Nothing’s more uncomfortable than sleeping in your clothes,” she said.

  They didn’t stay up much later than Anne. Only long enough to bathe Joseph and put him in his crib, to watch a bad movie on TV about a young couple who find a million dollars, and though they sat close together on the sofa, neither one of them said very much. “Let’s go to bed,” Danny said.

  They usually slept spooned together, one of his arms flung about her, keeping her close as his heartbeat, but tonight, they both lay on their backs, blinking at the ceiling. He couldn’t sleep. God. He just couldn’t sleep. And then he heard noises. Anne moving about the house. The pad of her feet. As exhausted as his daughter was, she couldn’t sleep either. His daughter, he repeated to himself, suddenly as startled as when he first found out she was in his home. When Joseph was born, he was there in the delivery room, holding Charlotte’s hand, as terrified as she was, and as soon as Joseph had come out, dotted with vernix, eyes wide open, Danny had burst into tears. No one tells you what it’s like, he thought, how mixed up in the fierceness of your love is sadness because you know from the moment they’re born, they’re moving steadily away from you. Right now, he knew everything there was to know about Joseph, that he laughed if you tickled his feet, that he loved it if you blew raspberries on his sweet little belly, that his cry when he was hungry sounded different—longer, more plaintive—than his cry when he wanted to be held. Oh, yes, Danny knew everything about his boy, but he was smart enough to know that soon, he wouldn’t. And right now, he didn’t know much of anything about his daughter. And soon, she’d be leaving. And how was he to know it wouldn’t be for good, that all he might have is this one small slice of her time? He slid down against the pillow. Then there was a loud thunk, and then he turned to Charlotte.

  Charlotte’s eyes were open. “Guess we’re all up now,” he said quietly and she nodded.

  They heard a door whine open and then shut, and then the house was quiet again, and how funny, he thought because as soon as it was, he missed the noise of Anne. And he wondered how much more he’d miss when she was gone and what that would mean for him.

  He called in sick the next day. He had been so conscientious, had barely missed an afternoon of work for a doctor’s appointment, let alone a whole day, but to hell with the office. His only thoughts were of Anne.

  Charlotte had gone out before he was even up, coming home with enough groceries for months. Almost instantly she started in the kitchen, and he could still hear her, the clang and rattle of pots. The lilting babble of Joseph. And then, suddenly, she started to sing, some top-forty song that had a lot of “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy” in it, her off-key voice winding around him, moving him closer to her.

  He puttered around the house, waiting for Anne to wake. He did chores, fixing the garbage disposal, rewiring a lamp, watching the time. One hour passed, and then another. Soon, Sara and Eva and George would be here, coming for Anne, and every single feeling he had about that was as tangled as the wire on this lamp.

  “Hey.”

  He knew it was Anne standing there, leaning against the wall, in the same clothes she had worn yesterday, her hair wild about her face. But for a moment, in this raw morning light, the way she was standing, he swore he was seeing Sara again, when she was sixteen, and it confused him so much he stepped back, banging his leg against the table. He shook his head as if to clear it. There she was, his daughter, a thing as strange and astonishing as thinking he had seen Sara herself.

  “What?” Anne asked. She watched him as if she expected him to say something—which he gladly would have if he could’ve figured out what in hell would be the right thing to say. “I keep thinking,” she said. “Maybe we could do some things together while I’m here. Get to know each other. Go to a movie. Or go bowling.” Her face brightened. She looked brand-new, full of hope.

  “I’d like that,” Danny said, though he knew there was no time.

  “Do you bowl?” she asked.

  “Terribly.”

  She laughed. “See? We have something in common,” she said, and then the doorbell rang, and Anne froze. Suddenly, she didn’t look so brave anymore, suddenly she looked ten years old. “Did you call the police?” she whispered. “Are you turning me in?”

  “No, no—” he said, but she cocked her head, and then they both heard Charlotte.

  “Come in, you must be tired from your trip,” Charlotte said, and her voice was so warm and friendly Danny could have cried. And then he heard Sara’s voice, and then two more voices, and Anne touched his arm, like a small shock. “We got an earlier flight,” Eva said. Anne’s eyes grew large. “They all came here together?” she whispered, incredulous. “They don’t even talk.” Her gaze darted around. “What do I do?” she said. “What do I do now?”

  “We’ll go in together,” he said, and to his surprise, Anne reached for his hand and clasped it, linking her fingers with his so tightly that later he’d find faint marks.

  They walked into the room and two older people were there, older than he expected for Anne’s parents, and behind them was Sara, and as soon as he saw her, he felt even more confused. Time peeled back. Beautiful. She was still beautiful.

  “Dan,” Charlotte said, and he looked at her, dazed. She had Joseph in her arms and she handed the baby to him.

  The older couple looked over at Danny, and for a moment, he was a kid, when all he had to do was stand in front of anyone’s parents and feel their disapproval. The man thrust out a hand. “George,” he said. “My wife, Eva. I think we owe you thanks.”

  Eva turned to Anne. “Thank God, you’re all right,” Eva breathed.

  Anne dropped Danny’s hand and stared at the floor. Nobody else moved.

  “We came all this way,” Eva said. “Won’t you at least talk to us?”

  “Why? What good will it do?” Anne said.

  Charlotte cleared her throat. “I have to go to the store and pick up a few things I forget, and Joseph could use the air. Why don’t you all go out in the backyard and talk?”

  She took the baby from Danny’s arms, making him feel suddenly weightless.

  “I’ll be back,” she said. Charlotte grabbed her purse and then, as she passed, Anne reached out one hand and very lightly touched the baby’s head, and the baby looked at her, eyes bright with surprise.

  chapter

  fifteen

  They were all in the backyard except for Sara and Danny. There was a foot or so of living room between them, and suddenly Sara wished for an ocean. This was the first time she had been alone with him since that day she had biked to his old house, and she didn’t trust herself to look into his face. If she saw his mouth, she was afraid she’d want to touch it. If she glanced at his eyes, she was afraid of what she might read in them.

  “Sara,” Danny said, and she finally looked his way, and there, just for a moment, was the same heady pull in her stomach she used to get when she was fifteen. But she wasn’t fiftee
n anymore. And neither was he.

  “Please,” Danny said. He shifted his weight, avoiding her eyes. “Can we sit down?”

  She sat on the couch next to him, the nubby fabric scratching her bare legs. “Charlotte’s very nice. Is she okay about all of this?” Sara asked.

  “She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. Especially me.” He tilted his head, studying Sara. “Anne looks like you,” he decided.

  “That’s funny. I see you in her. She has your eyes.”

  “Are you taking her back to New York?”

  “She’s not mine to take,” Sara said, and as soon as she said it, she felt a curl of pain. She took a deep breath. Look at all the ways you can lose, she thought. She couldn’t go on talking about this, didn’t want to upset herself or anybody. She tried to think of something to say.

  “It looks like you have a terrific little boy,” she said.

  Danny brightened. “Isn’t he fantastic? We’re so nuts about him. And my mother just dotes on him.”

  “She could have doted on her granddaughter,” Sara said quickly, and then Danny flinched and she realized how sharply the words had flown out of her mouth. Frances, Sara thought. A lean, tired woman standing outside one chill day lying to a sixteen-year-old girl, lying to Danny, doing everything to keep them apart. It’s just what love does to you, she had said. Sometimes you do things you might never imagine yourself doing.

  Danny picked up a glass candy dish from the coffee table and turned it around in his hand. “I was angry, too, Sara,” he said. “After I saw you, I hated her. But how could I accuse her with Charlotte there? I just went back home with it all bottled up inside of me, but the further away we got, the bigger it grew. By the time we got home, I was half crazy. I dropped Charlotte off at the house, then told her I just had to swing by the office, and then as soon as I got there, I called my mother and had it out with her. I got so angry, I punched a hole in the wall.”

  “Danny—” Sara stared at his arm.

  “She didn’t apologize, didn’t think she had done anything wrong. I told myself that was it. That I couldn’t forgive her. That this was too big. I didn’t want her having anything to do with me or my family for fear she’d spoil that, too, and I told her if she told Charlotte, I’d call her a liar. I thought I’d feel better, but Jesus, I couldn’t sleep. I had this burning in my gut, and Charlotte kept asking what was going on, why my mother had been so short with her when she had called that morning. Then, I blew up at Charlotte because I couldn’t find the baby’s bottle. Joseph started wailing, and Charlotte gave me this cool look that was worse than if she had stabbed me.

  “I made a decision. I knew I had to let the anger go if I wanted to be happy. It doesn’t mean I forgive it. And I’ll never forget. But the next day, I called my mother and talked to her like nothing had happened. And we haven’t talked about it since.”

  “Are you happy, Danny?”

  “What a funny question,” he said, putting the candy dish down. “When we were kids, when I thought you didn’t want to see me anymore, I sure wasn’t. I was a mess. I left high school, left Boston, and roamed around, trying to figure out how to feel better. I drank a lot, did some drugs, I went through girls like Kleenex, and the only thing they all had in common was they looked like you. I was just trying to rewrite the script, but it always had the same finish. None of those girls was you and we always broke up. Then my brother died, and I had to come home, be the man of the family, and I still wasn’t over you.” He leaned forward. “My mother was so grief-stricken, she couldn’t go anywhere by herself. I had to take her, like her chauffeur. I didn’t mind. I’d drive and it was so good not to feel anything, not to have to make any decision except which route to take.”

  Danny started telling Sara about all the places he didn’t mind taking his mother to. The cut-rate shops she liked to browse through. The supermarkets. And he told Sara how he hadn’t even minded running his mother over to church on Sundays, because otherwise he’d be sitting stunned, in front of the TV with a beer in his hand, trying to concentrate on whatever was on, trying to wonder how his life had gone so wrong. “That’s where I met Charlotte,” he told her. “At church. My mother always wanted to stay for the meet-and-greets they had afterward. Watery red punch. Store-bought powdered donuts. Everyone all decked out in hats and ties, the whole nine yards. I never wanted to go, and I certainly didn’t have anything to say to anybody, a heathen like me, but I sat on one of the chairs, waiting for my mother, killing time, and every time, Charlotte would come over and strike up a conversation. She’d talk about a movie she had seen. A book she had read. Sometimes she talked about something going on in the community—a chocolate festival she was helping to organize, a new pet store that was opening that specialized in exotics. She made me talk, and even though I barely said two words, she treated me like I was the most interesting person on the planet, and she kept inviting me places I didn’t want to go. Picnics. Potlock suppers. Square dances.”

  “Square dances! You used to walk out of any place that even thought of playing country music,” Sara said. She tried to imagine him, moving with that easy grace of his.

  “Sometimes things change, and you don’t even see it coming.” Danny half-smiled. “I kept turning her down, but it never stopped her from asking me again the next Sunday. Finally, I went because it filled up the time. Because it was something to think about other than you. And then after a while, I went because I wanted to. I wanted to be with her. She could find fun in the simplest things. Even going to the Thrift-T-Mart to look for toasters. She’s the happiest person. She’s got faith and hope about life, and it’s catching. She makes you feel good just to be around her.” He leaned back on the sofa. “She’s good for me, Sara. She saved my life.”

  “Then you are happy.”

  Danny looked away from her. “I have a wife who loves me more than I deserve to be loved. I have a house and a good job and a beautiful little boy.”

  “You love her?”

  “Yes,” Danny said. “I do.”

  She was surprised at the hurt, and then there was a sound from the back of the house. A door slapping open and then shut again. “That doesn’t sound good,” Sara said.

  “I think Anne thinks we should have been her parents,” Danny said.

  “That would have been something, wouldn’t it?” Sara said, struggling to keep her tone light. They were both quiet. Outside, in front of the house, someone laughed loudly. Danny touched her face, and then she reached up her hand and covered his with it.

  She expected him to move away, but instead, Danny leaned toward her so their foreheads were touching, so she felt his breath against her face, coffee and cigarettes, and then Sara kissed his nose, the way she used to when she was just fifteen, so shy and scared, she didn’t know what else to kiss, and then he closed his eyes, distressed, and she kissed his mouth, and he moved closer to her, holding the kiss, cupping her face in his hands.

  A car beeped outside and Danny slowly pulled away from Sara. He stood up, dazed, and walked to the window and waved, and when he turned back to Sara, he looked like a different person to her. The yearning in his face was gone. All his features seemed put back into place. She felt as if she had been shaken roughly awake from a dream she had wanted to keep dreaming.

  Charlotte came bustling through the door, holding up a bottle of wine. Her gaze skittered from Danny to Sara, and she frowned. “Well,” she said shortly. “Shall we see if things look better on a full stomach?”

  Candles flickered on the table. A gleaming silver platter of chicken sat between long plates of green beans and sweet white corn. The chairs were all pushed so closely together that you couldn’t help but touch whoever you sat next to. Anne kept her arms stiffly folded across her chest, her gaze down. What had happened outside? Sara wondered.

  When everyone was seated, and when Joseph was wheeled in in the big carriage, placed by Anne, Charlotte held out her hands. “We usually say grace, all right?” she asked. Eva re
ached for Anne’s hand, and Anne tucked it into her lap, but Sara reached across the table and took Danny’s hand, warm and smooth, cool only where his wedding band was. “Bless this gathering,” Charlotte said. “Amen.” Hands released, but for an extra second, Sara held on to Danny’s and when she let go she still felt his warmth.

  Sara’s stomach was in knots and she couldn’t eat, but she picked at the food, wanting to be polite, swallowing half a forkful of yams, a sliver of chicken. Charlotte got up, her chair scraping. “I’ll just get more butter for the bread,” she said. As Charlotte headed into the kitchen, she touched Danny’s cheek, the top of his head, and when she came back, she trailed her hand along his back as if each touch were a marker.

  Joseph squealed. “What’s my little guy up to?” Danny said. His voice lifted, he looked at his son with such pure, open delight, that Sara couldn’t help but smile.

  Anne leaned over the carriage and held out her finger and Joseph grabbed on to it, squealing louder. “Hey, you,” she said, and she laughed, the first time since she had arrived at the house.

  “Will you look at that!” Charlotte said. “I do believe he’s in love.”

  Joseph made a buzzing sound and Anne looked up, delighted. “Doesn’t it sound like he’s saying my name?” She laughed again, and tickled the baby. “I’m your half sister,” she told him.

  No one spoke at first. “Of course you are,” Charlotte said quickly. Anne’s face lit up and then Joseph reached out for Charlotte so eagerly that he bounced in the carriage.

  Eva took the napkin from her lap and threw it down on the table. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to spoil this lovely dinner, but I just can’t keep pretending that everything’s fine.” She turned to Anne. “Why did you come here, Anne? To a stranger’s?”

  “Maybe you two are the strangers,” Anne said. “This is my real father.”

  Danny looked pained. “Anne, you can’t stay here.”

  Sara tried to speak. “You have to go home with Eva and George.”